That the county
season of 1975 finished as late as 16 September was a significant development
in the scheduling of the English cricket season. Until then, the Championship had
regularly concluded on the day before the Gillette Cup final, always played on
the first Saturday in September. This extension seems to have been considered a
bit too bold, as it remained the latest season’s end for ten years, until in
1985 it was a day later. In 1990 the last day pushed past 20 September, largely
to accommodate four-day cricket. The following year, the Championship concluded
on the 20th, but that was followed by one and four-day contests
between the champions (Essex) and the winners of the Sheffield Shield
(Victoria). Rain cost Essex victory when they were two wickets short of an
innings victory. That Merv Hughes was the top scorer for the Victorians
suggests that they were treating the trip as a bit of a jolly. It has not been
repeated.
It was
another five years until the Championship went beyond the 20th of
the month, and it remained the exception rather than the rule. Only in 2005 did
the last Championship game start after the 20th, and only since 2013
has the last week in September become the regular finishing point for English
cricket. Only once (since the foundation of the Championship at least) and for
barely more than an hour, has October hosted county cricket, the Bob Willis
Trophy challenge match between winners and runners-up in 2021.
In 2025, I
write at the end of a wet week of disrupted county games (happily excluding the
probable decider between Surrey and Nottinghamshire), including a shortened
50-over final. As usual when September is wet, there are complaints that it is
unnatural to play as the leaves change colour, but the rain can disrupt any
English month. Much of my cricket watching on visits to the UK in the past
three decades has been in September and with the exception of 2019, it was
idyllic. Twice I visited in April and froze on both occasions. Playing county
cricket throughout September is fine by me.
In 1975, it
was the week in which Leicestershire became county champions for the first
time. A month out, four or five teams appeared to have a better chance, but
they timed their run perfectly. It was a personal triumph for Raymond
Illingworth, whose seventh season as Leicestershire captain this was. He had
built the county into a winning unit in one-day cricket, the 55-over trophy
earlier in the season being their third in four seasons. Yet on paper they were
not one of the strongest contenders in first-class cricket. For one thing,
their overseas fast bowler, Graham McKenzie, was playing one more year than was
wise, and came seventh on the county’s wicket-takers list for 1975. They had no
current England players, but were a line up of county pros most of whom were having
one of their best seasons, plus the other overseas player, Brian Davison, who
led the batters. They were superbly captained by Illingworth, who, at 43, came 15th
in both the national batting and bowling averages (though with a third of his
appearances at the crease being not out).
One of the
great sporting tales was rightly celebrated on its fiftieth anniversary: Chris
Balderstone finished the second day’s play 51 not out. Earlier, the securing of
a bonus point had given Leicestershire the Championship, but rather than join in
with the celebrations Balderstone got in a car driven by Doncaster Rovers
manager and was driven to the club’s home ground, Belle Vue, where he played
the full 90 minutes in a one-all draw against Brentford in Division Four. The
following morning Balderstone resumed his innings and completed his century.
Kent had
their worst year of the seventies. In their other two trophyless seasons of the
decade they got to a final (1971) or led into the final game of the Sunday
League (1979). In ’75 the county went out of both knockouts at the first
opportunity and faded away on the final month of both leagues. The heavy
demands of the selectors was a partial explanation. Six players to the World Cup, Underwood and Knott for
four tests, Woolmer for two and Denness for one. Then we would never have
contemplated that the county could have a season as bad as 2025, 29 points adrift
at the bottom of the table.
News came
this week of the death of Bernard Julien. Fifty years ago he was a World Cup
winner, and had a good season for Kent around international appearances and
injury, averaging 30 with the bat (despite often coming in at No 9) and 17 (40
wickets) with the ball in first-class cricket, including a five-for with spin
at Folkestone. He toured with the successful
West Indies side in 1976 and had a more moderate year in 1977, after which he
was released, possibly because those in charge felt compelled to make a sacrificial
gesture of one Packer player, at least. Bernard Julien was a richly talented
cricketer whose promise was never quite realised, but he shone along with the
sun in the glorious summer of ’75.
When I last
conducted an exercise like this—recording scores and news each day on Twitter
(now also on Bluesky) with a weekly retrospective here on Scorecards—I
had the feeling that I was, if not quite at the cutting edge of the digital
revolution, at least no more than a day’s walk from it. A few years later and writing
a blog seems akin to driving a car that needs a starting handle to shake it
into life, or playing cricket on uncovered pitches. If I had any self-respect I
should be doing a podcast, or on Tik-Tok, I realise.
Yet there remains
an unsurpassed pleasure from turning thoughts and memories into words on paper
or a screen and it is an exercise that I undertake primarily for my own
enjoyment, grateful as I am for the occasional interactions with a very small
cross-section of the discerning. It has been an excuse to enjoy again the
writing of John Woodcock and Alan Gibson among cricket writers, and others such
as David Lacey and High McIlvanney on football and Clive James’s TV reviews,
all scribes who inspired my interest in words and how to use them when I first
came across the posh papers at around that time.
For these
reasons, I will probably do this again at some point, museum piece as it is.
The following summer, 1976, was even sunnier and drier, and full of fine
cricket, most of it played by the West Indies. I would like at some point to recreate
an old-fashioned tour, playing the states before going into the test matches,
or to go way back, perhaps to Kent’s first Championship year of 1906. If and
when this comes about, I will try to restore more context in terms of what was
happening in Britain and the world. There was less of this for 1975 than there
had been for 1967, partly because the news was so much concerned with income
policies and industrial action, which interested me at the time, but have
become archaic and so take too much explaining to be of any use here.
As for 1975,
the opening words of Norman Preston’s Notes by the Editor in the 1976 Wisden
hold good.
Surely the season of 1975 will go down in the annals of
English cricket as one of the best of all time.
